Peripherals
by MaySoFarAway
Summary: Prompts from my blog, bits and pieces of Bethyl, both tv-verse and Howl-verse. Arrows and scraping nails and strung nerves.
1. Silence

**Author's Notes:** So these will be prompts from my Tumblr! Never fear, I'm finally finishing up the last few chapters of 'Howl', they'll be up soon! These rarely relate to each other. A few will be Howl-verse, most are tv-verse though. They're not always the cleanest, as they've been written on the fly, but hopefully they entertain. Enjoy!

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**Prompt:** "Hush"

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She's gotten so much better at being silent.

Her footfall is almost as soundless in the woods as his, and she's proud of that fact. The wordless communication came easy as well, even back when they were thoroughly annoyed with each other. Now, companionable silence can be a whole dialogue.

It startles her to realize that it was nearly dusk and they hadn't actually spoken a word outloud to each other all day, and she notes this quietly. Daryl nods, tossing a blanket back over the one window in the shed they'd claimed a few days back.

"S'just weird to think, how I always had to fill the silence, way back," She says, voice still low, sorting through the canned goods they'd scavenged that day. Sitting across from her on the dusty floor, he chuckles. "Now?" He rests his head against the wall, an arm across his knees, and her eyes catch his, the curve of her mouth turning up just a little.

His fingers twitch, but he doesn't look away from her, though his eyes do drift, and she knows he hears her. Their silence is always full.

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	2. Blood

(could be Howl-verse)

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**Prompt:** She's Pregnant

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It's cold outside, real cold, the kind of cold only the North can deliver. He can't be inside though, not yet. For sure, he's not that much of a dick, he'll man up and face what's happening, good or bad, just…

He needs the cigarette, desperately, and he sure as hell won't smoke in the house no more.

There was that soft bed he'd wordlessly put together for her, hauled all the way to the farmhouse from some fancy, dusty furniture place and spread with all the good quilts. Daryl didn't have much to say, wasn't good with words, wasn't good at using them to get across just how he felt about a given situation.

Thankfully, Beth had known him long enough. She knew that responding to the news that she was knocked up and equal parts giddy and terrified, with a whole new bed, was probably the equivalent of a sonnet, given the source.

She'd woken up in a pool of blood that morning.

The front door opening and closing rouses him, and with a shaking hand he puts out his cigarette, looking up at Maggie as she approaches him, reaches for him even, and he lets her tug him in. "We knew she was too small, too thin," She whispers, and there's his answer. He crumbles a little, and she clutches him tighter. "I'm so sorry Daryl…there'll be others, though, this place is safe and she's getting stronger and…"

She says some other things, but it blurs. He just nods, kissing the top of her head before finally moving to go inside.

She's small and pale on the couch under a pile of blankets, the makeshift IV in her arm. He slips in behind her, wrapping her up in his arms, and she turns to press her face to his chest, silent tears seeping into his cold clothes.

"I ruined the bed…" She whispers.

"I'll make ya a new one." He promises, his voice breaking.

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	3. Warmth

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**Prompt:** Huddle For Warmth

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The signs and clues left by two groups that kept juuuust missing each other had begun moving North. Maggie was apparently convinced that Glenn had gone North, somehow, and so Beth and Daryl were following her trail, following his.

It's a good plan, turns out, as the chill of winter comes and Walkers start to freeze around them, either to the ground or simply in their joints, eyeballs twitching in otherwise motionless undead.

Of course, the downside is that living humans freeze too, if not tended to properly.

The house they're sheltering in that night hasn't any fireplace or woodstove, unlike the many farmhouses they'd been blessed to find in Virginia or Pennsylvania. It's early evening and they're on opposite sides of a scavenged camp stove, and Beth is already chattering in her layers. It had been different when they were moving, in the full light of day. Night was coming on though, and they were still, and she was so very thin…

"Gotta get some meat on those bones, girl," He murmurs, and Beth huffs on a laugh, still chattering.

"Get in line," She breathes, grinning, and Daryl's heart twists to see her lips tinged in blue, "Hell of a metabolism to have at the end of the world, huh?"

"Get over here," He manages to keep the threatening note of panic out of his grumbling voice, reaching for her. Beth presses her lips together, but doesn't protest, knowing full well that she's minutes away from shutting down. "Take off your coat," He instructs her, meanwhile tugging one of their quilts up over his shoulders, opening up his own layers and tugging her in close, wrapping them both back up again. "…Jesus, Beth, you're like ice," He shivers, and feels her shake with a laugh against him.

"Better the cold gets me than some damn rotten Walker teeth, right?" He's pretty sure she means it as a joke, but it aint funny to him in the least. He clutches her closer, her face pressing against his t-shirt under his sheerling-lined jacket, his leather vest.

"Nuthin's gettin' you," He maintains firmly, trying not to get too distracted by the scent of her hair…she'd washed it, last place they'd stayed, one with a working woodstove and its own well. Something girly-smelling, green tea he thinks the bottle had said. His hands clutch at her back. "Y'don't get to leave me alone, remember?"

"No last man standing," She nods, drawing in a breath, her skin warming against him, her face nuzzling up to his neck, making him freeze for a moment, swallowing hard, "…You smell good."

"S'called soap, finally gave it a try," He grins, despite the fact that she's kissing his skin, his jaw, the corner of his lips, "…Beth…"

"Just gettin' it out of the way, if this is gonna be a habit up here," She grins, her lips sliding against his, no longer any shade of blue.

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	4. Touch

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**Prompt**: Touch

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She huffs into the early morning air, shutting her eyes, mustering her nerves.

It was a perfect morning. Those didn't happen often, not by the new standards. A morning free of Walkers outside one's shelter, a warm morning, a morning with just the right amount of fog, the right amount of dew, the smell of early summer on the air. And had she mentioned no Walkers? It was really important. No Walkers. No need to rush. No need to run, to hack, to stab, shoot. A languid, perfect morning.

She steps back from the window, sinking back to the bed they'd made on the floor. Beth'd had last watch, and so Daryl was actually sleeping for once, eyes shut, limbs curled around themselves. She reaches out, brushing his hair back from his brow, the slightest touch.

He responds, though, stirring in his sleep, leaning in to her fingers and Beth swallows hard, lingering.

A perfect morning. That had to mean something, she assures herself as she gathers her courage, as she moves over him, hands moving on his bare chest and arms, sliding over sinew and bone and muscle. He stirs further, mumbling, and then his eyes are opening, fixing on her face in an instant, wondering.

She slides her fingers over his lips, silent, steadying above him, and he relaxes under her, even giving her a small smirk under her fingertips. His hands slide up her thighs, and her eyes slide shut, reveling, settling, rocking her hips against his.

Touch. Feel. A perfect morning.

He turns her over, a desperate groan in his throat and she's wrapping limbs around him like a vice, helping him tug away layers, clothes, skin sliding over skin, teeth grazing collar bones, hip bones, her gasps slipping out and into the fog outside her windows.

Perfect.

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	5. River

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**Prompt:** Stopping To Bathe

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"Not like it's anything I aint seen before," She talks over his flustered protesting in the water, smirking, "Lord knows ya whip it out to piss in front of me every chance you get."

"S'not the same," He grumbles, sinking deeper into the shallows, and Beth rolls her eyes, scrubbing the clothes he'd left on the river bank with the soap she'd dug up in their little shed. A shed they might well have to winter in, what with the chill that was creeping down south. The close quarters were what prompted the scrubbing, as the fall of civilization had a very telling…well, stench.

"Still can't believe we got used to ever bein' clean," She murmurs, tossing his clothes over a rock to dry, clean spares on the grass. "Thought I'd never forget those seven months on the run…"

"Might be lookin' at it again. Turn around!" Daryl shouts, and Beth just rolls her eyes again, doing so, crossing her arms and listening to him splash out of her water. As soon as she sees him grab his waiting scrap of a towel in her barest periphery Beth turns, somehow managing to pretend that the sight of his bare, scarred up chest for the first time in two years didn't send her heart up into her throat.

"Seen that too, case you don't remember," She hums, tugging off her shirt, kicking off her boots.

"…I really don't-… oh. Farmhouse, right," There was a wince in his voice, and from the tone she knew he was facing away from her, plucking up his crossbow as she shed the last of her clothes and hurried into the cold water with her soap.

"When Andrea shot you in the head!" Beth sighs happily, despite the cold, quickly, gleefully scrubbing off the layers of dirt and gore, letting down her hair. "Couldn't blame her, I thought they were haulin' in a walker myself." She teases, turning to look at him now that she's in deeper water. He's dressed, and looking at her, jaw working, bow still ready in his hands. That was why they'd gone together, after all… being alone, naked and unarmed was kinda ill-advised.

Practical. Still…he was lookin' at her, like that.

"…How did you get those scars on yer back?" She finds herself asking, meeting his eyes carefully now, treading water to rid herself of the messy suds. He looks down, shaking his head, though a little humor sneaks into his voice.

"We aint that close yet, Greene."

"Yet," She surmises, tilting her head, and he nods, slowly, looking back up as she moves toward the shore again. And he doesn't stop looking, not until the water's low around her waist anyway, his hands twitching on his bow as he finally glances away. Blushing, Beth swallows, reaching to take that same damp, musty towel he holds out, moving over to where she's got a clean sundress waiting on the grass.

She runs the towel over her limbs and head quickly, vaguely noting how long her hair has gotten, now that it's down and wet. His gaze is drifting back her way as she brushes it out with her fingers, her blue eyes flickering to meet his. "Not fair," Beth is very proud of her ability to cling to her sass, faced with Daryl Dixon giving her an unabashed once-over. While she's naked. "I got _way_ less of an eyeful."

"Thought you just said you'd seen it all, back when you was sixteen," He murmurs, fighting to hold back a downright shit-eating grin. Though she knows she's likely a deep red by now, Beth grins right back, making a bit of a show of pulling the sundress over her head, of tugging her wet hair out and over her shoulder. He moves the barest inch forward, as if he can't help himself, as if tugged forward by some force unseen, and it makes something in her chest clench tight, stealing her breath.

After what feels like the longest moment of her life, Daryl finally sets down the crossbow, moves forward, slides a hand through her hair. He smells so good, too, when he tugs her in, buries his face in it.

He'd tell her all about the scars in the morning, each and every one. Lord knows they'd be close enough by then.

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	6. Escape

(Mostly fan-service, after this week :P)

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**Prompt:** More Bethyl!

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"Someone stole yer girl, is what you're saying?" Joe tilts his head, pondering for a moment, eying Daryl up and down. Daryl's not about to correct him…not yet, anyway. Beth aint his in any sense, save maybe being his only reason for not going with the ghost of Merle in his head, telling him to breathe the chemicals in deep, to go feral, to go with what's familiar, old, intrinsic…

To go back to being a fuckin' nobody, another bolt at some asshole's more competent elbow.

"Yeah, s'what I'm sayin'," Daryl nods, tilting his chin up, playing along because he has to, because he knows how to, because he might know this role a little too well, for all he knows these guys have to pull some other stuff he'd never do in a million years. His notion is confirmed when Joe smiles slowly, a weirdly warm smile, nodding.

"I can respect that," He replies, sucking in a merry breath, "Though, you know, I get my guys to help you out?" Joe tilts his head, and Daryl halfway excepts the terms, "You share. It's how we keep workin'…everybody shares. These men are loyal to me? Because I make sure they're taken care of."

A nerve in Daryl's cheek twitches, but he expects it doesn't give him away much. Joe would expect a man on his own to respond thusly to such conditions. Daryl makes a point of taking his time, of his fingers flexing on his bow. Lets the rage at the very thought bubble at the surface, glancing at the leering collective around him, defiant and charged, men who might have once passed as normal in the old world, their baser horrors kept in the dark. And then, he manages a slight slump to the shoulders, a low sigh, a hard swallow.

"I get 'er first," Is his agreement. A round of appreciative murmurs that make his stomach turn follows.

Never let it be said that Daryl Dixon didn't have a stone cold poker face.

"Let's go get yer girl, Bowman!" Joe beams, slapping his shoulder.

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The tracks aren't hard to pick up again. The house isn't hard to find, barricaded on the first floor to the nines and ringed in a herd of listless walkers. A low whistle over his shoulder, and for all these dicks are scum, Daryl knows it's the promise of stores like those in the trap of a funeral home that keeps them on task, has them storming the grassy lawn, the promise of food and warm company.

Traps like those that had gotten Beth in the woods snap up, get dodged, take down at least two of Joe's men right in the thick of walkers. He doesn't stop to help them, and he knows Joe notices.

The leader doesn't do anything, though, not until two more fall to the herd, 'til Daryl actively pushes another into waiting, rotting jaws. Joe dives for him, Daryl knocks him upside the head, and keeps running.

The old Victorian is fortified below, yet an inner strength overcomes him and Daryl scales the trellis on the porch with ease, swinging up onto the second floor balcony. He breaks a window, tumbles inside, bow raised…

He's in a large bedroom, he can see that much by the flickering light of an old time lantern. A chair is toppled over, ropes sliced apart, and by the door there is a body, dressed in undertaker black and still bleeding all over the floor. And standing over that body, long knife in hand…

"I waited until I heard you comin'," Beth breathes, her chest heaving, her blade dripping, a relieved smile on her face.

He drops his bow, he takes the room in two strides, he gathers her up on one arm and buries his face in her hair. She clutches tight to his vest, hands clawing at his back, and if possible he holds her even tighter.

"No way in hell I'm doin' this without you," He gasps, kissing the top of her head, drawing back and framing her face in his hands and kissing her forehead. "…Ready t'run?"

"Always," She gulps, and he swings her onto his back.

Joe's prone form is nowhere to be seen, and neither are those of a couple of his cronies. That's bad, he thinks, as they run through the herd as they've never run yet.

They'll handle it though, he thinks, grasping tight to her fingers as they duck under the treeline. They can handle anything.

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End file.
